Familiar Faces In Unfamiliar Places
by MintSauce
Summary: And the door to the diner swings open and the laughter rushes in and there they are standing where she least expects them. Ian and Mickey, all these years later. Part 7 of All The Ways Mandy Finds Out


Mandy smiled as she grabbed Derek's hand, pulling him closer to her so she could press a kiss to his mouth. He smiled against his lips like he always did and one of his hands found its way between them, brushing over her barely there baby bump.

Mandy felt giddy and happy in that way she'd never really been able to as a teenager and she twisted the ring on her finger after they pulled apart, both still smiling like kisses were some sort of rarity.

"Come on," he told her, his fingers twining with hers and pulling her into the diner they'd found a little away from the commotion of the tourist-y parts of New York.

Everything insider the diner was faded with age and use, but the light that poured through the windows was bright and made Mandy carefree in that way she only really was with Derek.

The waitress that waved at them to sit anywhere was a young, pretty redhead and when she smiled at them she obviously meant it. She pulled her hair into a high ponytail, handing a glass of water to a man sitting at the long counter before coming over to them.

Mandy had picked a booth in the back corner by the window, taking a moment to watch the handful of customers in the diner besides them maybe out of habit, out of that old desire to need to know who was where in case you had to bolt.

There was a single father – and she could tell he was a single father by the tired look on his face, in his eyes – with his two young kids. A pair of teenage girls was sat across a table from one another not too far away, doing their best to demolish the huge stack of pancakes between them. Other than the man who'd just had water at the counter, there was another sipping at a coffee; but that was it.

Mandy found herself really hating that she was pregnant for a moment, she could have killed for a coffee.

"What can I get'cha?" the waitress asked with a sincere sort of brightness that Mandy couldn't really fathom. She didn't know if it was the neighbourhood she'd grown up in or just her overall pessimism, but it had her confused for a second.

To make up for not being able to have the coffee she wanted, Mandy ordered probably the most unhealthy sounded stack of pancakes on the menu and had every intention of eating them all herself.

She found the entire scene of the diner relaxing in a way she didn't really know how to explain. A part of her would always be wound up and coiled tight, on edge as she expected things to go to shit and everything to fall around her. She didn't think she'd ever lose that, didn't think anyone from the Southside of Chicago could really genuinely lose that; but she found it was a fact that bothered her less and less recently.

Mandy was on her last pancake when the door opened and the loud sound of laughing rushed into and filled the diner over the noise of the street outside. The waitress smirked and rolled her eyes and a moment later a voice cut over the top of the laughter, rough and harsh and so bitingly familiar to Mandy that it made something inside of her _ache_.

"I swear to God, I will put your head through that window if you don't shut the hell up!"

And suddenly she had this vision of the same Mickey who'd disappeared from Chicago walking through the door, grubby and angry and no doubt snapping at some fat chick he'd conned into sticking by him somehow. She'd always wondered if maybe he'd popped out a kid by now, because God knew none of the Milkovich boys could really keep it in their pants and she'd always wondered if Mickey would be as bad as a father as Terry was.

Instead, what stormed into the diner was maybe the complete opposite of what was in her head. Because Mickey looked better and healthier than she had ever seen him despite the dark circles under his eyes and the paleness to his already pasty skin. He was actually clean, no dirt smeared on his skin as though he'd actually showered that morning and even though his hair was gelled up and slicked back with the usual amount of gel in the same style as it had always been, Mandy didn't think it looked so dark with grease like it often had done. He was dressed in clean, faded jeans with a rip in the knee and a t-shirt that showed off the definition of his arms. She could see a tattoo poking out from under one of his sleeves and she couldn't see what it was exactly, but it didn't look vulgar or crude like she'd always assumed another of his tattoos would be.

And then in behind him walked the last person Mandy ever would have expected, although really she should have put together that they'd both disappeared off the face of the earth at the same time really...

Ian Gallagher's smile was just as bright and just as wide as it had been when they were teenagers and if it was possible he looked taller and broader than he ever had before. He practically filled the doorway as he walked through it behind Mickey, his ginger hair cut short and a splattering of freckles still on his face. He didn't really look too much different from when she'd last seen him aside from growing older, but Mandy thought maybe her old best friend looked happier than he ever had done in Chicago.

He'd always been destined to get out, had always _needed to_.

"Jesus Mel, can't you get some curtains in this place?" her brother asked, groaning and holding a hand over his eyes for a second, squinting.

The waitress snorted, rolling her eyes. "Oddly enough no," she replied, smiling at Ian with a knowing look in her eyes, "And the next time you ask, it's still going to be the same answer."

"Shouldn't have knocked back all that vodka if you didn't want a hangover in the morning," Ian commented, sitting beside Mickey at the counter. His laughter was written all over his face, his teeth flashing white as he grinned.

Mickey let his head drop slightly, perking up only a little when a cup of coffee was pushed under his nose. Mandy could remember when she'd used to joke that Mickey's coffee was always as black as his soul and just as bitter, but she took it the same way, so what had that said about her? "Fuck off," he mumbled, "You didn't really think I'd just sit there and watch all those fuckheads flirt with you did you! Especially since you said I ain't allowed to hit them!"

Ian snorted loudly, "Those would be my colleagues, Mick, so no you're not allowed to punch them and most of them aren't even gay!"

"Whatever," her brother ground out, "That Chase guy wants to get in your fucking pants though, man!"

Ian chuckled low under his breath and twisted his torso to look at Mickey, even though Mandy's brother was doing his best impression of a dying man where he was slumped over the counter. Briefly Mandy wondered if it reminded Ian of Frank at all.

"Yeah and I've already told him that I'm perfectly happy with my rude, grouchy, possessive, lazy-ass and temperamental ex-convict of a boyfriend," Ian said, ducking close and blowing in Mickey's ear with a smile on his face in a way that made Mickey swat at him.

"The ex-convict part really necessary?" Mickey asked in more of a mumble, turning his head where they were pillowed on his arms to look at Ian. Even from where she was sitting though, she could see the soft look in her brother's eyes and the small smile that was starting to creep onto his face.

Ian snorted, "Well I would have said dirty, but you actually shower regularly now."

Mickey pulled a face at him. "Tell me we still have Jell-O in the fridge," he said, almost begging, which seemed like a random statement to make if you didn't know that Mickey's favourite hang over cure since forever had somehow always been Jell-O. How the hell it worked, Mandy had never understood!

"There's always Jell-O in the fridge, Mick," Ian chuckled, sounding almost fond and definitely looking it as he watched Mickey lift his head to drink some coffee and act like it was the hardest thing in the world.

Ian rolled his eyes. "Oh come here," he muttered, fishing the ice cubes out of his water and dropping them into Mickey's coffee before grabbing a straw and positioning it at the other man's lips.

"Knew there was a reason I kept you around," Mickey muttered, putting a hand on Ian's thigh under the counter as he sucked down about half of his coffee in one hit.

"Yeah sure, that's the reason," Ian snorted, smiling nevertheless.

A part of Mandy wanted to be shocked. She wanted to go over and shake the pair of them and demand why they'd just up and left. Why they hadn't told her they were leaving, or that they were together, or that Mickey was even gay!

But maybe the reason she didn't was because she wasn't so blind that she couldn't spot a good thing when it was right in front of her. And Mandy never would have put Ian and Mickey together in a million years, but she found herself smiling as she watched Ian cover Mickey's hand with his under the counter, twining their fingers together.

She never would have guessed it, but that didn't mean she couldn't be pleased for them. Because how the hell was she supposed to be mad at them for leaving when she could see that they never could have been this happy in Chicago. Either of them.

So Mandy didn't go over and say anything to them. She just took one last look at their fingers wound together and kissed Derek's cheek as they stood to leave, sliding her fingers through his and she just let the boys have their moment.

Let them have their new life.


End file.
